Printing a PDF: Some symbols missing Thread poster: Erik Freitag
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Erik Freitag 
Germany
Local time: 21:43
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
Dear colleagues,
I went to a copy shop today to have a large PDF file printed (sheet music). I've noticed that on some pages, some symbols are missing (while similar symbols do appear on other pages). The person in the copy shop assured me that there were no settings to be made - she said she had no idea why the printout doesn't contain everything that's visible on the PC monitor.
Back home, I've printed some pages where this problem occurs: everything shows up alright.... See more Dear colleagues,
I went to a copy shop today to have a large PDF file printed (sheet music). I've noticed that on some pages, some symbols are missing (while similar symbols do appear on other pages). The person in the copy shop assured me that there were no settings to be made - she said she had no idea why the printout doesn't contain everything that's visible on the PC monitor.
Back home, I've printed some pages where this problem occurs: everything shows up alright.
I'd be grateful about any hint about what's happening here, and what I could do about this. Are there any settings I might be overlooking? I'm not 100% sure, but it is possible that the PDF has been edited in some way and that the missing symbols might be in a different layer or something like that...
Many thanks in advance,
kind regards,
Erik
[Bearbeitet am 2014-04-01 12:34 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | try printing from latest version? | Apr 1, 2014 |
I had the same happening recently with a PDF with math formulae, when trying to print from an older versin of Acrobat.
I was able to print it correctly from the latest Reader.
Worth checking what version of Acrobat is being used - just an idea!
| | | | | Missing embedded chars | Apr 1, 2014 |
One of the reasons why PDF files are small is that only the chars actually used from each font are usually embedded.
This is partucularly useful now that we often use OpenType fonts instead of TrueType. OT fonts include chars in Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, etc., which are completely useless for a text, say, in English. So these chars are kept out, huge savings in file size by embedding only the chars used, as compared to embedding the entire font.
The effect you ar... See more One of the reasons why PDF files are small is that only the chars actually used from each font are usually embedded.
This is partucularly useful now that we often use OpenType fonts instead of TrueType. OT fonts include chars in Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, etc., which are completely useless for a text, say, in English. So these chars are kept out, huge savings in file size by embedding only the chars used, as compared to embedding the entire font.
The effect you are having is what would happen if you had a text, say, in PT or ES with the word "republican" left in English using, say, crazyfont.ttf. It's the only word using that font, so only 10 chars of it are used. Now a proofreader checks that, and decides to add the missing "o" at the end. S/he doesn't have crazyfont on their system, so they'll use insanefont.ttf instead, just for that missing letter. If they use software with inadequate PDF font management, the unembedded "o" will appear normal in their machine, and in any other that has insanefont.ttf installed.
However it won't come up on a machine that doesn't have insanefont. For the record, as the crazyfont chars are embedded, they'll come up correctly, regardless of whether the computer has that font installed or not.
Keep in mind that italics, bolds and bold+italics are often separate fonts, so merely switching that may cause an unembedded char to disappear.
In your case, maybe the original notes were in, say, Beethoven.ttf. However someone edited that using Mozart.ttf, and failed to embed the latter's chars.
Though it's beyond the scope here, this Infix walkthrough explains this issue a bit more deeply. Infix demo would show you all the fonts used and where, the chars embedded, so you could troubleshoot this issue. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Erik Freitag
Germany
Local time: 21:43
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
@Roberta:
Thanks! However, I think the copy shop is not going to change their software versions for me.
@José:
Thanks, that makes sense, but would that be consistent with the fact that the missing symbols are showing up alright on the PC monitor in the copy shop?
And, since printing works alright on my PC, is there a way to save the PDF in such a way that all necessary characters are embedded?
I'm using Adobe Reader 11.0.2 and PDF... See more @Roberta:
Thanks! However, I think the copy shop is not going to change their software versions for me.
@José:
Thanks, that makes sense, but would that be consistent with the fact that the missing symbols are showing up alright on the PC monitor in the copy shop?
And, since printing works alright on my PC, is there a way to save the PDF in such a way that all necessary characters are embedded?
I'm using Adobe Reader 11.0.2 and PDFill (although I've only downloaded that this morning in order to insert some blank pages here and there).
Many thanks again,
Erik ▲ Collapse
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efreitag wrote:
Thanks, that makes sense, but would that be consistent with the fact that the missing symbols are showing up alright on the PC monitor in the copy shop?
Acrobat Reader has some internal devices to use internal lookalike fonts.
For instance, once I had a file that used, say wackyfont.ttf on PageMaker. I was provided with wackyfont.ttf regular, however NOT wackyfont_italic.ttf. It showed the wackyfont_italic.ttf on screen as Arial.ttf, however would print blanks instead of these letters in Arial.
This would call for some extended explanation on the PostScript printing language.
efreitag wrote:
And, since printing works alright on my PC, is there a way to save the PDF in such a way that all necessary characters are embedded?
I guess you'd need Acrobat full AND the missing font, whatever it is, to do it. Plan B, still in Acrobat Full, would be to search and replace all occurrences of the missing font.
If you don't have, Infix could do it as well. The demo version will rubberstamp all pages saying it was done with a demo. If you don't want to invest in buying the software, they have a more affordable "pay per save" (without the plan) plan. http://www.iceni.com
efreitag wrote:
I'm using Adobe Reader 11.0.2 and PDFill (although I've only downloaded that this morning in order to insert some blank pages here and there).
I've tinkered a bit with PDFill. I think it might have what you need there, i.e. reembed the fonts, provided you have the missing font.
[Edited at 2014-04-01 15:07 GMT]
| | | | | A good idea... | Apr 1, 2014 |
for taking a .pdf file to a printers would be to print the file as an image. If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro, it's just a checkbox in the Advanced options in the Print menu (you will end up with a larger, uneditable file, but WYSIWYG).
With other readers, you may have a similar option or in the worst case you can save each page as an image and recreate the .pdf file. You'll have to tinker with the image options depending on the quality you want, but again, it's worth it for getting ni... See more for taking a .pdf file to a printers would be to print the file as an image. If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro, it's just a checkbox in the Advanced options in the Print menu (you will end up with a larger, uneditable file, but WYSIWYG).
With other readers, you may have a similar option or in the worst case you can save each page as an image and recreate the .pdf file. You'll have to tinker with the image options depending on the quality you want, but again, it's worth it for getting nice hard-copies.
p.s. There is also an option in AAP to specify if you want to rely only on System fonts or not. ▲ Collapse
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